Located in Binondo, Manila's Chinatown is considered to be the oldest Chinatown in the world, being established in year 1594. It used to be the dwelling place place of the Spanish wives and mixed-race descendants. Famous figures who have lived in this part of Manila include the Filipino saint, Lorenzo Ruiz, and Mother Ignacia del Espiritu Santo, founder of the Religious of the Virgin Mary congregation.
(Source here.)
As much as we'd like to explore more of the historical part of the Chinatown, our stomachs are growling because we didn't have a decent breakfast that day. Good thing, my ever hard working twin was able to search beforehand the best places to eat here. But because it's Sunday, most of the food establishments are close. :(
After almost 30 minutes of walking around, we ended up in this restaurant. The place is clean and the food and prices are OK. I couldn't really say much about the food because 1)I'm not an expert when it comes to Chinese food, err to all kinds of food in general (I just eat whatever is being served) and 2)I was so hungry that time that I no longer have the zest to really savor the food in front of me.
 |
| steamed ribs for P75 |
 |
| first time to drink soya milk |
Grace was telling me about this hole-in-the-wall restaurant which, according to her research, serves really good dumplings. My feet hurts a lot that time but we couldn't just leave Chinatown without tasting those dumplings.
We walked for a couple of minutes more, asked more strangers, got lost A LOT, went back again to our starting point, repeated the entire process 'til we saw this small restaurant with a lot of diners. We got really curious so we look up, read its signage and gotcha! We finally found Dong Bei!
 |
| We're so thrilled when we found it! |
They make their dumplings on the spot!
Months before this trip, me and my single friends are planning to celebrate our 'monthsary' or our Single Awareness Month in a shabu shabu restaurant. Since chopsticks will be used, I figured out that it would be the perfect time to polish my total noob chopstick knowledge (the last time I used chopsticks was like 16 years ago). However, because of some changes in our schedule and plans, I was not able to make use of what I've learned from YouTube (to whoever invented the Internet: THANK YOU!).
But guess what? I was able to put it into practice here!
 |
| Learn a skill. It'll come in handy one day. |
I'm not really a huge fan of steamed food but the taste of these dumplings and the pork ribs (see photo above) made me think twice of them.
 |
| P100 for 12 pieces You can have it fried or steamed. |
Buying sweet goodies from this food shop sealed our mini food trip in Binondo :)
Have you been here?
How's the dining experience?
No comments